


like an auto-tune of authentic love

by voltemand



Category: Dumbing of Age
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-23
Updated: 2021-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-28 15:54:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30141948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltemand/pseuds/voltemand
Summary: Joe likes looking at her, just looking at her, like the creep he is, but he wonders if staring at Joyce is more purifying than corrupting (despite the Quasimodo-feels he gets around her: she dresses like a grandma and he still wants her; seriously, he wants her), like if she touched him by accident one day he’d curl up, fetus-like, refold himself, and then she’d touch him again and he’d explode into a novel organism, the version of Joe he was always meant to be, evolving for her, just for her. He wonders if he’s been doing this all along, reforming because he has a disagreeable sense that she wants him to.
Relationships: Joyce Brown/Joe Rosenthal
Kudos: 1





	like an auto-tune of authentic love

**Author's Note:**

> Title is a poem by Carmen Giménez Smith.

The first time they sleep together-- literally, like, she sleeps on top of him, her head warm and her hair tousled on his chest-- it’s at a party, and because of that, sleeping with a girl he really likes at a party he kind of hates, Joe despairs of being an original for the rest of college. Before, he was kind of trying to carve out a niche-- Jewish horndog with a heart of gold and vague, terrible, unrequited feelings for his fundie friend-- but he’s realizing that guys like him, Casanova-types redeemed through the power of uncomfortable affection, have gotta be a dime a dozen at colleges, or at least at public universities, or at least at IU, and anyway said fundie hadn’t even _touched_ him, not really, just, as he’s said, her head on his chest, her hand so far from his dick that it was honestly funny, like his penis was literal Joyce-repellent. Which, awesome, _incredibly_ awesome, especially because he’s thinking that she’s probably the girl he most wants in his pants for the rest of his life.

Joe likes looking at her, just looking at her, like the creep he is, but he wonders if staring at Joyce is more purifying than corrupting (despite the Quasimodo-feels he gets around her: she dresses like a grandma and he still wants her; seriously, he wants her), like if she touched him by accident one day he’d curl up, fetus-like, refold himself, and then she’d touch him again and he’d explode into a novel organism, the version of Joe he was always meant to be, evolving for her, just for her. He wonders if he’s been doing this all along, reforming because he has a disagreeable sense that she wants him to.

“You changed,” she’d told him once, her eyes huge and blue in a way that’s frankly _racist_ , and impossible, probably; they haven’t gotten to alleles yet, but he’s going to take really fucking good notes.

He’d closed his eyes at her, smirked, arranging his face into something appropriately in-character so as to be inscrutable, and told her that people don’t change. Why? Because at that particular point in time, he’d believed that they don’t, because he didn’t want to believe that he’s someone who has, quod est whatever. He told himself _even Joyce hasn’t changed, despite whatever she says._ Now, he knows: she’s changed, but not in a way that’s directly relevant to him: she’ll always be too good for him, and if he frames it like that, he knows that he won’t ever have to ask her, he won’t ever have to try. He can improve himself for her; he just won’t do so in a way she’ll find appealing. Not that hard. She likes guys like Ethan and Jacob, nice guys. Joe can pour as many layers of acceptableness and morality onto himself as he wants, but he guesses, he knows, he feels at the core of his very being, his soul, whatever, she would know what to call it: he’s not nice. He can make you happy, super happy, for a little while. He’s excellent at sex. He’s the _best_. But Joyce doesn’t need the best, she needs good, and Joe knows that he’s never ever going to be her kind of good.

\--

The second time they sleep together, they’re drunk, and in the morning (honestly, even during), Joe wants to kill himself more than a little bit for that, him basically exploiting her trauma for kicks and orgasms, although he knows, somewhere deep in his head, that they’re really taking advantage of each other, mutually-assured destruction via the better, or at least littler, form of _mort_. Joyce has the hand on _his_ ass, like a fucking anchor of, he doesn’t know. Light. Goodness. It’s a hand on his ass. Does it have to be anything more? Does he want it to be anything more?

When they get to his dorm, she looks determined and frightened and super, super hot, and he tries to aim for a piece of hair falling into her eye, but he misses, gets the cheek, and feels the swell of her jaw, thinks about mountains, volcanos, thinks about islands forming under the sea, quiet and invisible. _If a Joe falls for a Joyce_ , etc.

“Pay _attention_ ,” she commands him, and oh, _shit_ , her bra is _purple_ , her bra is purple and she’s looking right at him, her hand moving slowly to his, caressing it as it caresses her face, her wrist pressed against his, and he thinks he’s burning up, thinks he’s on fire, thinks he’d let her set him on fire. She’s not a prophet, but Joe’s always been okay at following.

“Have you,” he says, “have you ever done this before.” Her gaze is snaking down to his fly; she doesn’t answer, and _God_ , he could get used to this, he really could.

She’s still hot to the touch when he-- you know. He’s never felt so bashful about sex, never felt like it was something he had to keep close to his heart, probably because his heart has never been anywhere near the equation, probably because he used to be smart before she got here, probably because, again, they’re drunk, they’re not making good decisions. They’re dumb college kids. Dumb college kids sleep with their friends all the time.

Joyce turns away from him when they’re done, like they’re an old married couple, like they fucked one another up a long time ago, like they’ve got all the time in the world to keep killing each other softly, and wouldn’t you know, when you’re eighteen, a college semester’s the closest you’ll get to eternity. (He’s reading _Paradise Lost_ for English Lit. He’s thinking about that book a lot. He’s thinking about changing his major. He’s thinking, or rather wondering, about what Joyce thinks about _Paradise Lost_.)

\--

The third time they sleep together, Joyce is wearing a Santa hat in the middle of April, and he’s starting to ponder if this is his fate, punishment for being a douchebag: having to be turned on, more than turned on, by a woman who punches him in the arm for asking if she’s, like, _culturally appropriating_ for that, or just _reclaiming her heritage_ , a woman who stuffs the cotton ball in her mouth because she claims she dunked it in mouthwash, her lips (lips on her _face_ , you pervert) popping around the dingy white sphere.

Everyone else is also wearing Santa hats because it’s a Christmas party (he’d like to reiterate: in April!), and everyone else has the smarts to avoid mistletoe, but hahaha, not Joe fucking Rosenthal, obviously. He finds Joyce in a corner and is about to start chatting her up, not even chatting her up, just being gross, just being the dude that he is, the dude both of them knows he is, the sort of dude who is so awful that the girl can’t even _look at him_ after sex (that she initiated). She makes a strange motion, a sort of jerk of her head upwards, like a huge pointer finger, a blinding neon red arrow at the sprig of mistletoe hanging above them. 

“Sure,” Joe sighs. “This might as well happen.”

Joyce inclines her chin upwards, meets him in the middle. It’s a very chaste kiss.

“Were you _waiting_ for me?” he asks later, once they’re sprawled out on his bed, Joyce picking at her hair with his comb.

“I guess,” she says, wincing as the comb runs through a knot. “I haven’t slept with anyone since last time.”

“You haven’t slept with anyone _ever_ ,” he corrects.

“You don’t know that.”

“I kind of do.” He crooks his finger at himself, then at her, feeling gross and hazy, like he’s in a dream, a really good dream, a really, really weird dream. “Joe. Joyce. Friends.”

Her hair is almost done now, and Joe wills himself not to touch it. “You’re not my _best_ friend.”

“Okay, so does Dorothy know about this?”

Joyce clicks her teeth together, making a sharp, disconnected sound. “Nope.”

“Becky?"

“Becky _worships_ you.”

“Damn right she does.” He cringes at himself for the “damn,” wonders if she noticed.

Joyce inspects his chest, the expanse of him. He considers holding her forever, engulfing her, thinks better of it. “Do you think people change?” she asks, inexplicably, a weird recall to leather-jackets and Tit Inspector T-shirts and normalcy.

He _hmm_ s and stares at the top of her head, the few straggling strands of hair, tries to find a metaphor, decides that Joyce by herself might just defy the analytical tools he’s learning, the ones he’s known all his life.

\--

The fourth through fourteenth times they sleep together, they don’t even have the excuse of an event. Joyce just finds him and he’s crushed, literally, he feels like she’s sitting on him and not even in a sexy way, unless she wants it to be in a sexy way, just perforating his lungs until every last bit of oxygen has been squeezed out, and he’s aware of how dramatic he sounds, but hey, he thinks he’s allowed a little drama. He’s an English major now.

He sort of swears off other women. It’s _disgusting_. Nobody even knows about the two of them. He’s not sure if he even knows about the two of them. Joyce definitely does because she’s the one who (almost) always decides _yeah, this is a time we’re going to put our bodies on each other; yeah, this is a time that I will indulge him_.

She likes when he reads to her, and he likes when she tells him what’s going on in her life, her comic strip, her friendship troubles, how Dorothy’s transferring, how Dorothy’s not actually transferring, how X is with Y but Y likes Z but Z is probably-- and she doesn’t even whisper here, just blurts it out, like pushing the word out of her mouth will push herself to understand it-- _gay_. “You know, Danny’s bi,” Joe tells her once, and she nods forcefully, smiles at him with all her teeth, and he feels guilty turning Dan into another thing for her to grin at. That’s a pattern nowadays-- he’ll take pictures of leaves he thinks she’ll like, send her songs, even read Cosmo for a few of the-- _fine_ \-- sex tips. Whatever. Not actually whatever.

\--

The fifteenth time, they’re in a friend’s bathroom, and that’s pretty fucking telling, that they don’t even remember which friend-- or at least Joe doesn’t remember-- and neither of them finish, none of it finishes, except the very obvious thing that does. She just disentangles herself from him, lies down in the bathtub, says “I’m staying with Dorothy this summer.”

Joe sits on the rim of the tub, his feet swinging outwards, twists his torso and his neck to face her. “Okay.”

“I’m going to be at her family’s house the whole summer, and I don’t want to infringe on their hospitality.” She touches the nape of her neck. “You get it.”

He nods, wonders how hard you have to pull to break your own neck.

“I’m saying that I’ve really liked the time we’ve spent together.”

Joe feels like a bobblehead. They clean up, knees brushing once in a while. “Sorry,” Joyce whispers at the end, and he brusquely pats her on the back, feels her shoulder blade, feels her forehead against his clavicle as he hugs her, exhales, pushes her away.

They drive home in separate cars, which is totally insignificant because he’s not sure if he’s ever been in a car with her in his life, but it feels emblematic of something, and so he jolts his head against the steering wheel, brings it back up sharply, stares at the road.

Over the summer, he stays with Jacob, reads a lot of Frank O’Hara, and considers sending “Meditations in an Emergency” to Joyce. He doesn’t, but he does email her several links to fun things to do in his hometown. With commentary. _I always liked this_ isn’t an admission of anything. _I always liked you_ doesn’t have to be either. _I still do_ might be a little harder to spin, but he sends it anyway.

One day, _I do too_ pops up in his inbox.

\--

There’s a sixteenth time. And a seventeenth. And a fiftieth. There's Joyce in his arms, her heart going a mile a minute, Joyce in his bed, Joyce by his side. There are bad days, but there are a lot of good days too, a lot of good times, a lot of times-- yeah, okay-- that they have possibly ill-advised car sex, or they hook up in a student bathroom, or they just sit, Joyce’s arm heavy around his shoulder. Joe’s hoping for a hundred of those, a thousand, ten million.

Eventually, he stops having to count.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell with me on Tumblr at [withatalentforsquaddrill](https://withatalentforsquaddrill.tumblr.com) (for general bullshit) or [foresme](https://foresme.tumblr.com) (for fandom bullshit).


End file.
